Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja to visit Washington D.C.
The Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja will travel to Washington on Sunday 29 March. On Monday 30 March Minister Tuomioja will attend a seminar on Innovative Global Governance Processes for Mobilizing Political Will, organized jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The seminar will focus on how to promote the implementation of the global Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda at the inter-governmental negotiations. Former President of Finland Tarja Halonen will also be attending the seminar.
The seminar will be opened by the President of the Brookings Institution Strobe Talbott. The opening session will be held as a panel where Minister Tuomioja and President Halonen will be interviewed. The seminar will be chaired by the Vice President and Director at the Brookings Institute, former Administrator of UNDP Kemal Dervis. Following the multi-stakeholder approach adopted in the Helsinki Process, the about 100 participants invited to the seminar have been selected to broadly represent the governments of the south and the north, private sector, NGOs and academia.
On Tuesday Minister Tuomioja will meet some of the leading researchers and experts on Russia working in the U.S. The topics to be discussed will include Ukraine, Russia’s internal situation and the relations between Finland and Russia.
As one of the most influential think tanks in the world, the Brookings Institution in Washington has been a regular partner of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs since the early 2000s. Strobe Talbott, the President of the Brookings Institution and Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, was for several years a member of the international steering group of the Helsinki Process focused on developing global governance.
The international community is currently preparing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda to be adopted on 25–27 September 2015. The implementation of the agenda will require political will, mobilisation of financial and other public and private resources, more efficient national administrations and international organisations, better global governance and global partnership. These themes form the agenda of the seminar.
Additional information: Special Adviser Tarja Kantola, +358 40 590 4119, Counsellor Soili Kangaskorpi, +358 50 383 0467 and Ambassador Pertti Majanen, +358 50 372 2148